Opinion needed from an excavator operator or other

[MarkV]

What I would add is to find out where the septic tank is before moving in with heavy equipment and realize you are going to need a good amount of WELL compacted fill to build on the same site. If at all possible I would try to build where you have undisturbed ground.

Good luck
MarkV

 

[Richard]

I would also agree with Jinman about hand work for the field stone.

I would agree with the agreement....

When we added onto our house, the builder was going to take care of the flagstone I had already installed. Wife said "OK".

I said NO WAY. Told them to not touch it as I knew they'd simply pull the backhoe out and either bulldoze it around or use the hoe end to claw, scrape and other wise, push it around.

I wanted it "removed" not manhandled. If that is what I wanted....then I had to be willing to do the work.

I pulled the entire sidewalk up and even went further, scraping up most of the underlying sand base that was under it (and spread it on the gravel drive)

I restacked all the flagstone in a flat area and when the builder was done, bought some more of it, pulled it down from storage and rebuilt my sidewalk. I was able to reuse basically 100% of what I origianlly had (absent finding other pieces of new stuff that worked better)

There is zero doubt in my mind that had I let the builder do it, most would have simply been buried with the old septic tank and not reusable. (or smashed)

My back is still killing me....

 

[scott_vt]

Good Morning New Jersey Mike,
Just a side note on that old oil tank.

The tank needs to be cut in half, probablly length wise. Then using speedy dry, needs to be cleaned, absorbing the sludge, disposed of properly. Then you can take it to metal recycler... All junk yards in Ct are required to have that done before it can be accepted as scrap ! Im sure similar rules in neighboring states !

 

[Brushhill dave]

12" is too much of a lift at one time. 3-4" lifts are the max I would go then compact

 

[mattridessleds]

I had a similar situation at my place. Old farm house and an addition that I demoed. Stone foundation plus some pretty hefty pieces of cement from the slab from the addition. I had quotes up to 7k to do exactly what I did with a 1700 dollar rental machine. Took me 30mins to figure out the controls and get good enough with it to pick up and dig out all the rock etc.. I just used the rock as fill on one of my hills though and didn't truck it out of there. Same plan hoping to put a garage up in the same spot in a couple of years. Took me a day to get rid of the foundation and for the rest of the week I dug a pond and did some other jobs around the house. Wish I had one all the time. If it were me I would rent the machine.
-Matt

 

[shortthrow50]

I do this for a living and work for a builder and do all his tear downs and site improvements. 1500.00 a week will get you a very small excavator. Doesnt seem like you need a 30 yard dumpster. Maybe a 20 yarder becuase there doesnt look like much garbage. You cant go putting any stone in the dumpster becuase you will get charged a boat load for over tonnage. If it was a demo i get sent to do, I could probably get away with charging 2 grand. 1000 bucks for a sizeable excavator for one day. I would just get a bucket without grapple to save on cost. Your gonna need at least a cat 318 like in my video below to get that foundation dug out and stock piled or buried. One day job for me it looks like. Bucket would be fine to sift through that and dig out the gargbe to put in dumpster. Any other machine other than i mentioned is gonna either take you all week or gonna give you ****. Thats just a quick take from your pictures. I like to look at my jobs in person.

Heres one of my jobs. The guy in the video is not me, its my brother who was lookin for work and is his first demo job so i let him get some seat time. This tear down took two days and about 7- 30 yard dumpsters. House was fully furnished
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpkKXhbfAdg&list=UUSSFUkguBXBANxXL8YRZx1g&index=44&feature=plcp]andover demo - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Depmandog]

I agree with the others, the stone is worth the time and effort to pallet and resell / or use on a future project.

An excavator with thumb would be my preferred machine. Grab what you can from up top, pick a spot and excavate a ramp down, then finish moving debris from the bottom setting it up top.

Two dumpsters, a trash and a metal dumpster. You might not have enough metal to get paid for the scrap...but you probably will have enough to get it hauled away free. Have the dumpsters there and direct load as much as you can to keep from handling the debris twice.

After you get all of the debris out, put a pallet on forks (if you have them) and drive down in the hole with your tractor. Put the pallet up to the rock wall -close to the top, and start stacking rock.

Not sure how much weight you can lift, but you can do the math and figure how many pallets you will need for the rock. My guess even if you have a helper, this is going to take a few days.

Not sure of your plans for the excavator after the rock removal? If you planned on using it to backfill, the rock salvage operation will interfere and likely push you past your one week rental. If so, once you have cleaned up on the inside, you could use the excavator bucket to tip the rock into the hole, the use your bucket on the tractor to scoop and remove. Haul to the topside and dump.

This will make it harder to palletize, but you can always do a little at a time on your schedule.